Mexico and its Religion Part 3

Hardly had our newly-wedded pair found themselves located in their own house, and finished receiving the usual round of congratulations, when the wife was summoned to appear before the priest. She at once complied, accompanied by her husband. The priest inquired why the husband came, as he had not been sent for; he had only sent for the wife. The husband gave him an Englishman's answer--that she was his wife, and where she went, there it was his place to go. The priest's reply to this opened the cause. The marriage was not lawful, and he must detain her, and send her on to Puebla, and have her placed in a convent. Such was the order he had received, and which he exhibited; and the two soldiers at the door were stationed there to carry the order into execution.

At this point in the affair the Englishman drew two arguments from under his coat, and leveling one of them at the head of the padre, suggested to him the propriety of not interposing any obstacle to the return of himself and wife to their home. This was a poser; an act of open impiety; a Kentucky argument. But there was no remedy. The Inquisition was not now in authority; its instruments of torture had been destroyed; its fires had been extinguished; and so the Englishman got the best of the argument, and retired peaceably to his own home.

At his house the Englishman was waited upon by the Alcalde, who informed him that he had been ordered to take the wife, and that he dared not disobey. But he suggested a method by which the order might be evaded. This was to send the wife every day, at a certain hour, into a neighbor's house, and at that hour the officers would come and search his dwelling, and would accordingly report "Not found." This farce continued to be enacted daily for nearly three months, when the husband, becoming tired of it, wrote to the Bishop of New Orleans an account of the manner in which his house had been besieged, and in due time received a reply from that excellent ecclesiastic, stating that he would satisfactorily arrange the business; at the same time expressing his regrets that he had not before been informed of the condition of affairs.

In the mean time, another priest in the town chanced to be discussing the all-absorbing question of the day, the heretic marriage, and unfortunately happened to remark that a marriage by an American priest was not a lawful marriage. This was too much for our Englishman, and he answered it--as an Englishman is accustomed to answer insulting remarks in relation to the affairs of his household--not by a single blow, but by such a pommeling as never a priest had sustained since the Conquest.

Yet there was no earthquake on the occasion, and Orizaba was not discomposed at witnessing such a shocking act of impiety.

Time moved on, and with it came the parish priest to validate the marriage. But our Englishman would not be _validated_. No, not he; and when the priest began to mutter and to move his hands, the Englishman's blood was up, and so was his foot, and this ceremony was terminated according to a formula not laid down in any prayer-book now extant.

This was the end of the war. The pair had pa.s.sed through many tribulations in order to consummate their union; yet both declare that the prize was worth the contest.

THE MONK AT JALAPA.

Our good monk, with whom we parted at Vera Cruz, visited the convent at Jalapa, on his journey, and thus records what he saw:

"The night of our arrival at Jalapa we were entertained at the convent of San Francisco, where we pa.s.sed the day following, as it was Sunday.

The income of this convent is great, notwithstanding the community is composed of only six _religios_, though it might well maintain more than a score of them. The guardian of Jalapa is no less vain than the prior of Vera Cruz; but he received us with much kindness, and treated us magnificently, although we were of another order.

"In this town, as in all others, we observed that the lives and customs of the clergy, both seculars and regulars (monks), were greatly relaxed, and that their conduct completely gave the lie to their vows and their professions. The order of San Francisco, besides the vows common to the other orders; that is to say, chast.i.ty and obedience, exacts that the vow of poverty shall be observed more scrupulously than the other mendicants enforce it. Their dress should be of coa.r.s.e cloth, and of a color to which they have given a name [monk's gray]; their girdles, or cordons, of rope, and their shirts of wool, if they can bear them. They are to go without stockings; and, finally, it is not lawful for them to use shoes, but to wear sandals. Not only are they prohibited having money, but they ought not even to touch it; neither to possess any thing as their own. In their journeys it is forbidden them to mount a horse, although they should fall by the way from fatigue. It is necessary that they should go afoot with sorrow and fatigue; esteeming the infraction of any of these precepts a mortal sin, which merits excommunication and h.e.l.l. But they neglect all the obligations which the rigorous observance of these rules imposes upon them--to the neglect of all discipline, and to the disregard of the penalties. Those that have been transported to this country live in a manner which does not in any thing show that they have made a vow to G.o.d of even trifling privations. Their lives are so free and immodest that it might be suspected, with reason, that they had renounced only that which they could not, or were unable to attain.

MONKISH GAMBLING.

"We were surprised and even scandalized at the extraordinary sight of a San Franciscan of Jalapa, riding most beautiful mule, with a groom, or rather lackey, behind him, while only going to the end of the village to confess a sick man. His reverence, as he went along, had his garments tucked up from beneath, which exhibited a stocking of orange-color; a shoe of the most exquisite morocco; small clothes of Holland linen; with knots and braids of four fingers in width. Such a spectacle made us observe with more attention the conduct of that friar, and that of others beneath whose broad sleeves were exhibited a jacket embroidered with silk. They also wore shirts of Holland; and hand-ruffs inclosed their hands. But we did not discover, either in their garments or in their table, any thing that indicated mortification; on the contrary, every thing exhibited the same vanity which was noted in the people of the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GAMBLING IN A CONVENT.]

"After supper some of them began to speak of cards and dice, and they invited us to play, in order to contribute to the entertainment of their guests, one hand at a rubber. Almost all of our party excused themselves; some for want of money, others from not knowing the play.

At length they found two of our _religious_ that would place themselves hand to hand with other two Franciscans. The party being arranged, they commenced playing with admirable dexterity. A little was put down at first; it was doubled. The loss vexed the one, the gain stimulated the other. At the end of a quarter of an hour the convent of the Angelic Order[7] of our father of San Francisco had converted itself into a gaming house, and the poor _religious_ (friars) into profane worldlings. We, who were simply spectators, had occasion to observe what pa.s.sed in the play, and to acquire matter for reflection upon such a life. As the game went on engrossing in interest, the scandal continued to increase. The draughts of liquor were repeated with much frequency; the tongue unloosed itself; oaths mingled themselves with jests, while loud laughter made the edifice to tremble. The vow of poverty did not escape from the sacrilegious mirth. One of the San Franciscans, who had often touched money with his fingers and placed it on the table, when he gained any considerable sum, in order to divert the company, opened his broad sleeve, and with the hem he swept the table of all the stakes, amounting sometimes to more than twenty gold ounces, into his other sleeve; saying, at the same time, "Take care of it thou that canst, I have made a vow not to touch it." It was impossible for me to listen to such imprecations, and to witness such scandalous lives, without being moved; more than once I was on the point of reproving them, but I considered that I was a stranger, a pa.s.sing guest, and besides, what I should say to them would be like preaching to the desert. I therefore rose up without making any noise and went to my sleeping-place, leaving the profane crowd; who continued with their diversions until the dawn. The next day the friar who had laved his part with so much facetiousness, with more of the manner of a brigand than a _religious_, more suitable for the school of Sardanapalus or of Epicurus than for the life of a cloister, said that he had lost more than eighty doubloons, or gold ounces--it appearing that his sleeve refused to protect that which he had made a vow of never possessing.

MORALS OF THE MONKS.

"This was the first lesson which the Franciscans gave us of the New World. It clearly appeared that the cause of so many friars and Jesuits pa.s.sing from Spain to regions so distant, was libertinage rather than love of preaching the gospel, or zeal for the conversion of souls. If that love, if that zeal, were the motives of their conduct, they might offer their own depravity as an argument in favor of the truths of the gospel. Wantonness, licentiousness, avarice, and the other vices which stained their conduct, discovered their secret intentions. Their anxiety for enriching themselves, their vanity, the authority which they exercised over the poor Indians, are the motives which actuate them, and not the love of G.o.d or the propagating of the faith."

[6] Essai Politique.

[7] This is the t.i.tle of this order of friars.

CHAPTER V.

The War of the Secret Political Societies of Mexico.--The Scotch and the York Free-Masons.--Anti-Masons.--Rival cla.s.ses compose Scotch Lodges.--The Yorkinos.--Men desert from the Scotch to the York Lodges.--Law to suppress Secret Societies.--The Escoces, or Scotch Masons, take up arms.--The Battle.--Their total Defeat.

As Jalapa is a pleasant resting-place in a journey to the interior, we will stop here to discuss national affairs for a little while. The first political subject in order is the furious contest that for ten years was carried on between two political societies, known as the _Escoces_ and _Yorkinos_--or, as we should call them, Scotch Free-Masons and York Free-Masons--whose secret organizations were employed for political purposes by two rival political parties.

MASONS AND ANTI-MASONS.

At the time of the restoration of the Const.i.tutional Government of Spain in 1820, Free-Masonry was introduced into Mexico; and as it was derived from the Scotch branch of that order, it was called, after the name of the people of Scotland, _Escoces_. Into this inst.i.tution were initiated many of the old Spaniards still remaining in the country, the Creole aristocracy, and the privileged cla.s.ses--parties that could ill endure the elevation of a Creole colonel, Iturbide, to the Imperial throne. When Mr. Poinsett was sent out as Emba.s.sador to Mexico, he carried with him the charter for a Grand Lodge from the American, or York order of Free-Masons in the United States. Into this new order the leaders of the Democratic party were initiated. The bitter rivalry that sprung up between these two branches of the Masonic body, kept the country in a ferment for ten years, and resulted finally in the formation of a party whose motto was opposition to all secret societies, and who derived their name of Anti-Masons from the party of the same name then flourishing in the United States.

When the Escoces had so far lost ground in popular favor, as to be in the greatest apprehension from their prosperous but imbittered rivals, the Yorkinos, as a last resort, to save themselves, and to ruin the hated organization, they _p.r.o.nounced_ against all secret societies.

Suerez y Navarro, in his "Life of Santa Anna," thus relates the history of these Secret Political Societies:

"After the lodges had been established, crowds ran to initiate themselves into the mysteries of Free-Masonry; persons of all conditions, from the opulent magnates down to the humblest artisans. In the Scotch lodges were the Spaniards who were disaffected toward the independence; Mexicans who had taken up arms against the original insurgents through error or ignorance; those who obstinately declared themselves in favor of calling the Spanish Bourbons to the Imperial throne of Mexico; those who disliked the Federal system; the partisans of the ancient regime; the enemies of all reform, even when reforms were necessary, as the consequence of the independence. To this party (after the overthrow of the Empire) also belonged the partisans of Iturbide; those who were pa.s.sionately devoted to monarchy; and the privileged cla.s.ses.

"In the a.s.semblages of the Yorkinos were united all who were republicans from conviction, and those who followed the popular current--the ma.s.s of the people having devoted themselves to this organization. It is enough to say, in order to mark the position of both parties, that among the Yorkinos figured, in great numbers, those that believed the name of _republican_ was not a mere imagination.

"Some individuals of both a.s.sociations had the same object and the same identical end, and only differed in the modes of making their principles triumphant. A great number of persons, who co-operated in the creation of the new order, had belonged to the Scotch order, and had labored for the overthrow of Iturbide. They knew the secrets of the Scotch party, their projects, their tendencies; and the desertion of such furnished a thousand elements to the new order to make war upon the party they had abandoned. When parties were fully organized and a.s.sailing each other, the contest became terrible, and its consequences fearfully disastrous. Actions the most harmless, and questions purely personal, were matters for the contests of parties. The press was the organ of mutual accusations--now against particular individuals, and now against parties in conjunction. The Escoces multiplied their attacks until they lost all influence in affairs. Generals, Senators, Deputies, and Ministers abandoned their standard, as time increased the power of their rival with every cla.s.s of individuals that embraced the new order. In the nature of things there was desertion and fear, because, as a writer, who was initiated into both orders, remarks: 'A general enthusiasm had taken possession of men's minds, who thought they saw in the new order the establishment of future prosperity.'

"The seekers for office found ready access in these lodges to those who had office to dispense. The liberal found in the York lodges the strong support of liberty and liberal inst.i.tutions. The high functionaries of government found aid and support in the strength of opinions; and the people, ever in search of novelty, united themselves to this a.s.sociation, in order to form one ma.s.s which sooner or later would suppress the privileged cla.s.ses.

INTRIGUES.

"No intrigue, nor any effort, was able to check the progress of the York lodges. This induced their enemies to present the project of a law in the Senate, where the Escoces had a majority, to suppress secret societies by severe penalties against those who adhered to such a.s.sociations. For the better insuring of success, the Escoces a.s.sumed the language of morality; and, confounding their own affair with that of their native country, clamored hypocritically against the pernicious influence which clandestine meetings exercised in public affairs.

According to them the cry of the nation was against secret societies.

The bill pa.s.sed the Senate after prolonged discussion, being supported by those persons who knew it was intended to satisfy an offended party, whose prestige diminished day by day. If the factions had not originated in secret societies, they might have extirpated the evil by proscribing masonry. When have the ravages of the hurricane been found to content themselves with logical and pleasant words? At what time, and in what country, has a law been enforced, where those who were to execute it found an insuperable obstacle in their own sentiments?

Indeed, it was impossible to destroy the political fanaticism of the day by the mere dash of a pen! The evil had gone to its utmost limit, and could not be cured by rigor or persecution.

"The demoralization was so great that it extended to the armed force, because the greater part of the chiefs and officers had joined one or the other of the societies. Besides the seductive influences of the lodges, two generals, distinguished for their services in the first insurrectionary war, brought with them a number of soldiers to the party to which each severally belonged. General Nicholas Bravo was the head of the Escoces, and Don Vincente Guerrero was the leader of the Yorkinos. Both derived support from the names and prestige of these two personages, and from the popularity which each enjoyed with his companions-in-arms. The Scotch party feared the day would come, in which the deputies--the majority of whom were their enemies--would decree the total proscription of all those persons who were hostile, or suspected of being hostile, to the Yorkinos, as the Chambers had fallen into the practice of submitting to the caprices of the dominant order.

They therefore appealed to arms, having exhausted the right of pet.i.tion.

"General Bravo, Vice-President of Mexico, and leader of the Escoces, having issued his proclamation, declaring that, as a last resort, he appealed to arms to rid the republic of that pest--secret societies, and that he would not give up the contest until he had rooted them out, root and branch, took up his position at Tulansingo--a village about thirty miles north of the City of Mexico. Here, at about daylight on the morning of the 7th January, 1828, he was a.s.sailed by General Guerrero, the leader of the Yorkinos, and commander of the forces of government."

After a slight skirmish, in which eight men were killed and six wounded, General Bravo and his party were made prisoners; and thus perished forever the party of the Escoces. This victory was so complete as to prove a real disaster to the Yorkinos. The want of outside pressure led to internal dissensions; so that when two of its own members, Guerrero and Pedraza, became rival candidates for the presidency, the election was determined by a resort to arms, which brought about the terrible insurrection of the Acordada.

CHAPTER VI.

Mexico becomes an Empire.--Santa Anna deposes the Emperor.--He proclaims a Republic.--He p.r.o.nounces against the Election of Pedraza, the second President.--His situation in the Convent at Oajaca.--He captures the Spanish Armada.--And is made General of Division.

We left Santa Anna at Vera Cruz, having just completed the first of those politico-military insurrections which fill up the history of his times. He had added the city of Vera Cruz to the national cause, by a timely insurrection. Iturbide had rewarded him for this important service by bestowing upon him the ribbon of the order of Guadalupe, making him second in command at Vera Cruz. The chief command of the department was bestowed upon an old insurrectionary leader, who was known by the a.s.sumed name of Guadalupe Victoria. He was a good-natured, honest, inefficient old man, whose great merit consisted in having lived for two years in a dense forest, far beyond the habitations of men. While thus hiding himself from a host of pursuers, he acquired that habit, supposed to be peculiar to wild beasts, of pa.s.sing several days without food, and then eating inordinate quant.i.ties--a habit which he found impossible to change in after-life, when he had become President of Mexico. The story of this man's sojourn among wild beasts had been told all over Mexico, and had given him a great popularity, which he brought to the support of the national cause.

In 1822 the Mexican nation was still in its swaddling clothes. Its birth had hardly cost a pang; but its infancy, its childhood, and its youth, were to be attended with a series of convulsions, the fruits of the vicious seeds sown in the conception of the new State. By the _p.r.o.nunciamiento_ of a part of a regiment of the King's Creole troops the connection between Spain and Mexico was severed forever, and the colonel of these troops became the Emperor of Mexico. In this revolution the nation acquiesced, and thus discovered to the soldiery their unlimited power when their arms are turned against their own government. From that time onward Mexico, like every other country where the Spanish language is spoken, became the victim of her own soldiery. This liberation of Mexico was by no means the result of the outburst of national patriotism, but the consequence of the utter incapacity of Spain longer to hold the reins of her colonial governments. She indeed sent out a new vice-king to Mexico after the breaking out of the insurrection; but the best that he could do was to sanction what had been done by a treaty at Cordova, in which it was stipulated that Iturbide and the new viceroy, O'Donoghue, should be a.s.sociated with others in a regency, until Spain should send out one of the Spanish Bourbon princes to occupy the imperial throne of Mexico.

The Spanish parliament refused to sanction the treaty of Cordova; O'Donoghue died, and Iturbide was left in possession of executive power, without a defined office, while an insane opposition sprung up against him in the new Congress which he had called together. This unlooked-for opposition soon convinced him that the tearing away of a nation from its traditional ideas was like the letting out of waters, and that he must either ride upon the wave or be overborne by the tempest. A resolution of Congress, to take from him the command of the army, brought matters to a crisis. Accordingly, on the night of the 18th of March, 1821, he caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor by his partisans; and the next day this new revolutionary act was confirmed by Congress, under the intimidation of military force, and the nation again acquiesced.

ITURBIDE DEPOSED.

The revolution had caused a stagnation in all the departments of commerce and of revenue. Iturbide had inaugurated his insurrection by seizing, at Iguala, a million of dollars belonging to the Manilla Company, on its way to Acapulco. He made another like seizure at Perote; but these high-handed measures, while they proved but a drop in the bucket toward sustaining his government, increased his embarra.s.sments, by destroying all confidence; so that his new authority had stamped upon it the unmistakable marks of dissolution. He was an emperor without traditional a.s.sociations; he had an empire without a revenue; a large standing army without pay. The fickle mult.i.tude, who supposed that independence was to prove an antidote for every evil, began to murmur; while a host of demagogues, who envied the good fortune of Iturbide, were all beginning to clamor for a republic. The blow, however, came from an unexpected quarter. Santa Anna had quarreled with a superior officer, General Echevarri, and Iturbide had recalled him from his command. But Santa Anna thought it most advisable to disobey the Emperor; and in the Plaza of Vera Cruz, surrounded by the garrison, he proclaimed a republic, on the 2d of December, 1822. He joined in his insurrection the name and the influence of Victoria, yet both were insufficient to save him from a complete route at the hands of Echevarri. At the critical moment in the affairs of Santa Anna, the Grand Lodge of the Ecosces decreed the overthrow of Iturbide, and sent orders to General Echevarri, who was a member of the order, to unite his forces to those of Santa Anna in overturning the empire. This was a bitter pill for that general to swallow, but he swallowed it; and the two leaders together swallowed the empire.